|
Abstract
|
Is child prostitution a crime committed by minors, or against them? Federal laws on trafficking consider the prostitution of children to be akin to the crime of human trafficking, which raises questions about how states categorize child prostitution. At present, most jurisdictions' prostitution statutes fail to distinguish between adult and child prostitutes. Given the recent rise in state legislation geared toward punishing traffickers and protecting child victims of trafficking, it appears counterintuitive to retain state statutes that punish child prostitutes when the federal anti-trafficking stat- utes could protect those same minors.
Highlighting the dichotomy between criminal and protected treatment of children who are prostituted, this article identifies gaps in both the law and social services and assesses public policy solutions designed to aid this vulnerable and growing population of commercially sexually abused children. The article argues that state legislation criminalizing child prostitution should change in light of trafficking legislation that treats children who are prostituted as victims of crime. Moreover, states should divert available anti-trafficking resources toward the rehabilitation and care of prostituted children regardless of their immigration status.
Is prostitution a crime committed by minors, or against them? Is it both? These questions cut to the heart of this paper. In almost all fifty U.S. states, a minor's selling of him or herself for sex, or prostitution, is a criminal offense. By contrast, the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) considers all minors engaged in commercial sex acts as victims of trafficking.3 This inconsistency presents a problem because at the same time, federal and state statutes regarding prostitution do not distinguish be- tween adult and child prostitution and criminalize both. Given the recent rise in state legislation geared toward punishing traffickers and protecting child victims of trafficking, there is now a deep tension between prostitu- tion statutes and anti-trafficking statutes--at least as they pertain to the treatment of minors.
This inconsistency is important because any particular outcome could be contingent upon which regime a law enforcement agency adopted.
Keywords: Human trafficking
Language: en |